Twitter began testing a “Buy” button on Monday (Sept. 8) with a small number of U.S. users, according to Business Insider.
The goal is to eventually roll out Twitter-based ecommerce for all its users in the U.S., the social media service said in a blog post.
During the test, a small percentage of users will receive tweets from test partners will feature products and contain a Buy button. A viewer who taps the Buy button will see additional product details and be prompted to enter shipping and payment information, after which the order is sent to the merchant for delivery. Payment and shipping details will be stored by Twitter for future use.
The new service is the brainchild of Nathan Hubbard, Twitter’s head of commerce, who was previously CEO of Ticketmaster and joined Twitter last year.
For the most part, ecommerce has failed on social networks. But Hubbard said he was able to successfully leverage Facebook and Twitter to drive sales for Ticketmaster. When people bought seats to a concert or a game, they could share the location of their seats on Facebook. Their friends would see those seats and click through to Ticketmaster.
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